Contravene
by Moga
Summary: Character experimentation  In accordance to the workings of the universe, there is no such thing as ‘pure.’  Everything thought of as such is just a tiny bit imperfect, but not necessarily evil.  It shouldn’t be wrong to be different, but it is.
1. Trojan

Author's Note: By this point in time, I've practically forgotten when I got into this fandom. Suffice to say I remember watching the premiere of every episode except the pilot. And I'm still here. Mostly lurking, but still here. I'm glad to see that there still is a fandom, a strong one at that, and still good ideas and good stories being generated. However, there is one large factor that negates from the- and I don't want to say quality here- but the potential of a good part of the fandom. That's Mary Sues. Not fan character, though, as every fan character is not automatically a Mary Sue and should not be thought of as such, because they can do a lot even as just a supporting character or catalyst. That's mostly what this story is: an exploration of little-used (possibly never used, in this fandom) character types. They're not invaders, they're not in love with a character from the canon (nor is a canon character in love with one of them), or… Never mind, I can't think of anything else, but I'm sure there are more, overshadowed in my mind by what I feel are the biggest character clichés. Which is why I get to alternate between standing on the soapbox of an author's note in a fanfiction and groveling through words for reviews. I really would like constructive criticism, because the worth of a character, once written and presented to the audience, is decided by said audience. I personally think that these characters are unique, and worthwhile, as I'm sure does the creator of many a bashed fan character and does the creator of a beloved fan character. Just because I think that my characters are a worthwhile addition to a story doesn't mean everyone else or even anyone else feels the same. So feel free to dislike, hate, maybe even be squicked by these characters; I'd like to know. The only thing I ask is that you're polite about it and frame your opinion in a tasteful, mature way. In other words, constructive criticism is as welcome as adding a story to your favorites list, but flames won't help a person's writing get any better. If you don't like something, give the person some tips to help them out, that's how a person improves.

And on a different note, yes, I do know that Zee is the name of a character on the show. However, to my knowledge she never actually had any lines and was more of a 'placeholder' character than anything; to the point that I totally forget she existed when I created O.C. Zee. So yeah, that's a 'my bad.'

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Warnings: Violence and potentially sensitive topics

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Trojan

As a rule, the higher your status, the more willing people are to look the other way in cases of moral and legal wrongdoing. It doesn't matter how that status is obtained, just so long as you have it. Zee had embraced this rule tighter than he would his own children, and took a machete to the jungle of worker suppression: bribing, threatening, and blackmailing his way to power. He could care less about the rich pay, cushy office, or elite status perks that came with his ill-earned power; he could wear a dress and not be deactivated.

His happiness was only interrupted by one large stipulation of his job: a very bored, very vengeful Control Brain. As head of the Core Smeet Hatchery of Irk, Zee was subjected to frequent meeting with the Hatchery's Control Brain, a male named Gnaven who was unfortunately different from the vast majority of the Empire in that he found himself a square peg in a round hole. Gnaven was originally created to uphold the laws of the Empire on a conquered and converted planet, but had been transferred to the Hatchery at the last moment. Several centuries of evaluating smeets later, Gnaven found the monotony of his work actually freeing his processing power. Distracted and immersed with his own thoughts, the Brain began damaging smeets with increasing frequency; connecting too roughly with their PAKs and screeching in their minds for their newborn questions and their unwillingness to cooperate with standard procedures.

Fearing for his ability to wear dresses, Zee quickly appealed to a higher Control Brain named Smidge to have Gnaven removed from the Hatchery and replaced with a different Control Brain. Smidge agreed with the suggestion, but never actually said she agreed with his motive or reasoning, because she didn't. Gnaven was replaced with a green-eyed female Control Brain named Mimar, who promptly created a new problem. Instead of frightening the smeets in to accepting the Control Brains as a force to be feared, Mimar fostered amongst the smeets an affection for her and, by proxy, a complete lack of fear or stricken respect for any other Control Brain. Later confronted by a typical Control Brain, they became disrespectful to it, warranting quite a nasty punishment in order to correct their behavior, which only confused them. The confusion gave way to anger and they only became closer to Mimar, alienating all other Control Brains.

It was with complete disinterest in the real issue that Zee pressed to have Mimar initiate smeets to life and have Gnaven deal with them thereafter. The proposal, written in thin, neatly formed letters, was accepted and the motion was completed. The smeets went on with their lives and Zee retired to his high-backed, well-padded chair for a silent victory party, which consisted of him doing absolutely nothing except running his fingers through the soft yellow fur of his pet, whom he had named Chao upon her birth.

He was therefore most displeased when his door was broken down in the middle of his celebrations. The door slammed against the wall, making quite a lot of noise and leaving a dent in the metal of the wall. A Hatchery worker panted in the doorway, hunched over with one hand on his gut. When he finished wasting Zee's time by catching his breath, he straightened, saluting with hand to temple and a respective bob of his antennae. His eyes were a rich orange, an unusual color that quickly identified his person: Hatchery Drone Tembel.

Chao growled, not specifically at Tembel, but at the general existence of discontent. Her long, pointed ears perked forward before flattening back against her head. She shifted in Zee's lap, minding her claws against her keeper. Zee did nothing, only looked at Tembel with smoldering displeasure.

"Sir!" Tembel fairly squeaked, "There's been a- ah, um… Upset in the Hatchery." Zee blinked, tilting his head slightly and softening his gaze to mild annoyance. "One of the smeets is… some kinda not good." Zee went back to glaring holes in the drone.

"Myeh," Chao commented, picking up on her master's emotions. Zee sniffed in response, picking her up and pushing her over his shoulder as he stood. Chao's small tail wagged, mindless of the small triangular spike near the end, as she clambered over him, wiggling head first in to the white drawstring bag that had taken the place of Zee's PAK. Pet so secured, Zee huffed and pushed his way past Tembel, who shied away from him by pressing back against the doorway, hands drawn up protectively.

Mood decidedly darkened, Zee stormed down the metallic corridors, leaving Tembel behind as his blocky shoes stomped the floor. Navigating the hallways was usually easy, especially since he had a digital map of the building programmed in to himself, but in his anger Zee wound up making several wrong turns and was forced to backtrack more than once, glaring questioning workers in to submission.

Anger leaving no room for embarrassment, Zee threw open the door to the Existence Examination room in almost the exact same manner that Tembel had, except that this time the act was clearly in the right. Zee marched his way up to the platform in the center of the room, a cloud of doom hovering dangerously around him. He stepped onto the platform and raged as far as he could until he was stopped by a small smeet sitting on the floor. Before them, Mimar was emitting mindless cooing chatter and all of Gnaven's eyes were narrowed, a few them twitching. One of his tentacles was making jabbing motions in the direction of the smeet, arced over its head and pointed towards its PAK. Another tentacle was busy smacking Mimar's whenever she moved to scoop the tiny thing in to her grasp for a hug or a cuddle or some other disgustingly touchy-feely thing.

Zee peered down at the smeet, noting nothing wrong with the young male besides a bit of darkness around his eyes. The smeet stared back, facing away from him with its head titled backwards, seemingly in danger of toppling over backwards at any moment. With no verdict yet determined on the smeet's fate, Zee grimaced, sucked it up, and put one of his feet behind the smeet so it wouldn't hurt itself due to the weight of its head. The thing squeaked as it was touched, jerking away slightly out of reflex. In an attempt to catch it, the smeet wound up sitting on top of Zee's foot. It squeaked again, happily settling down and leaning against his leg, innocently looking up with wide red eyes, not even realizing the implications of such.

Composure shattered, Zee's face paled before he jumped backwards, flailing his foot around until he dislodged the smeet, who squealed as he was sent flying through the air before being caught around the middle by one of Mimar's tentacles. While Zee was busy going through a spell of disgusted twitching, the smeet gagged sickly, likely a result of its sudden flight and the blow to its stomach. When Zee recovered himself, he moved to stand with some semblance of respect before the Control Brains, vowing to regain all lost dignity. He flinched, however, tongue poking out as he found himself faced with two Control Brains and the backside of an unclothed smeet. And proceeded to force down all screams of horror and memory flashbacks, hastily backing away from the smeet and his own past.

Innocently, the smeet watched him, head upside down and antennae perked forward, curiosity winning out over gravity. With a gentle sigh, Mimar righted the smeet, holding him close with one tentacle underneath him and one along his side. As Zee fought with himself, she cooed reassuring nothings to the tiny male, rocking him gently. The little thing hiccupped, glancing around in a bit of a daze as his infantile mind tried to comprehend the being that was holding him and the ache in his belly.

When Zee triumphed over his mind and returned to the current situation, he came back on

guard. Gnaven had yet to flagellate him for an outward show of weakness and such physical disgust. That right there was an enormous red flag, complete with wailing klaxons, for trouble in the immediate future, or more precisely, the here and now.

Coughing slightly in to his fist, Zee once again composed himself before the mechanical duo, opting to deal with his vast loss of dignity later. With a courteous nod and dip of his antennae, Zee finally signaled that he was ready for the counsel to commence.

Gnaven's eyes narrowed, his tentacles drawn close his body, ready to strike when needed. Lifting himself impressively, Gnaven began speaking in his nasally voice, condemnation dripping from every nuance of his speech. "This smeet has presented itself as a new breed of defective," he stated, muddy red eyes looking down on everyone in the room with forthright, rank-given superiority. "It has adversely reacted to a process that billions of others have flawlessly undergone. This smeet failed to properly sterilize." Gnaven conclusively ended with an unvoiced sniff of disapproval.

Zee blinked thoughtfully, tilting his head as one hand came to rest beneath his chin as he deliberated. After a few moments, he straightened himself. "If I may, I do believe that there is no reason to destroy this smeet. If he is only fertile, and male, than he can be sterilized, as he is, after decantation. It's a simple process, not that risky. It can be preferred certainly by tomorrow, if not today." Gnaven made a noise of annoyance, his tentacles twitching in agitation.

"No you defect, it's not fertile! It isn't even male! It's some mixed-gendered type of defect…" there was more to the statement, but it deteriorated in to indistinguishable muttering and finally petered in to silent.

Mimar pouted at her fellow Control Brain, holding the mix-gendered smeet protectively. "Shush, you'll scare him." She pulled the smeet even closer, pressing the dark red curve of her hull to the other's small form. "It's not that bad; who'll ever know anyway?"

Gnaven turned to her, tentacles pulling closer to his body. "Who will ever know? What kind of idiotic question is that? The defect is slated to be a soldier; soldiers, I shouldn't need to remind you, are raised in barracks. Barracks! That means together, with other, normal Irkens who don't need that sort of barbaric filth in their existences!" The tentacles were twitching again, a dark fire of self-ascertained higher purpose burning in Gnaven's many eyes.

Mimar frowned, running one tentacles along the smeet's form soothingly. "Well who says he has to be a soldier? He hasn't even had his first download yet, we can just change his rank."

Gnaven snarled at her, fangs bared from a useless mouth as he berated her. "And what of the defect? You act as though it will never figure out that it's different! And then what? What sort of savage thoughts will it come upon than? This is what causes rebellions, revolutions, empires to topple!"

Mimar actually had the audacity to giggle in the face of Gnaven's impassioned speech. "Oh Gnaven, stop being so silly. That's all slippy-slopey stuff. Nothing bad will happen!"

Gnaven snorted. "Oh, really? How interesting it is, than, that the rate of defective deletions has risen since you were assigned here. I do not claim to be privy to the programming of the Counsel, but somewhere along the line a mistake was clearly made, as this position is most unsuited to your singular personality."

Mimar's shell tilted, confusion showing clearly in her wide eyes. "But I like it here."

Gnaven snarled, internally enraged that Mimar was not affected by his words. One tentacle lashed out, snatching the smeet from Mimar's grasp. The little thing yelped as it was grabbed, tiny limbs flailing as it squealed. Gnaven growled, lowering it until the newly decanted being was level with his primary eyes. The smeet whimpered as its small form was squeezed, screeching as the tentacle curled tighter, crushing its tiny body.

Zee shivered slightly, hands clenching and unclenching behind his back as memories fought to come to the surface of his mind. The frantic screams weren't helping and visions flashed before his eyes, wide as they stared at the morbid scene. Mimar was screaming, her tentacles scrambling at Gnaven's as she tried to free the little smeet. If she were capable, Zee was sure that tears would be brimming in her eyes and spilling out over her metal form.

Gnaven's eyes narrowed further, his gaping mouth set in to a frown of deep annoyance. The tentacle shifted slightly, wrapping around the smeet's head to suffocate its voice and breathing apparatus. The smeet thrashed still, eyes wide as tears fell silently over paling cheeks. The life was draining from its red eyes, the bit of darkness around its eyes becoming more prominent the more the color drained from the smeet's face.

Another moment and it was limp. Gnaven sniffed at it, unwinding his tentacle and letting the body fall to the floor with a sickly thlump. Nodding slightly to himself, Gnaven drew his tentacles back to himself, closing all of his eyes contentedly as he settled to the floor, resting on the cushion of his tentacles.

Mind silenced by the vicious display, Zee took small, slow steps towards the smeet's still form. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen violence so unexpected. Yes, he had had pets that had run amok and caused much damage: destroying computers, killing drones, smashing smeet tubes… But those had been an expected event, not set for any particular time, but with the distinct possibility of a rampage lurking ever just under the surface of their furry forms.

Eyes distant, Zee stooped to pick up the still-warm body of the smeet, watching with a detached morbid fascination as its limbs moved limply, drawn down by gravity with no muscles to fight with. It was odd, holding something dead when there was no visible cause of death. A laser wound, limbs blown off in an explosion, a pile of goo-coated bones removed from acid; any of those he could understand. Deadly illnesses had been all but eliminated thousands of years ago, and the few that remained left visible scars as marks of their victories, a reminder of the mortality left in the near super-predator species. But this… There was no reason for this, no logical cause that could explain the smeet away in to the darkness of death. And everything had to make sense; the Empire would accept nothing less.

It was in this haze that Zee left the room, Mimar's pitiful sobbing going unregistered. He walked down the hallway in a trance, pace steady and mind blank. His footsteps were not stomps as his rather rectangular shoes usually made them, but soft as he move silently through the hallways. It was this unnerving silence that made the hatchery drones scurry out of his way when they heard the slight but distinguishable thunking of his shoes.

He arrived at his quarters later than he usually would from just a walk back from the Existence Evaluation room; almost an oxymoron considering that one would likely be pressed to move faster when transporting a dead body. Sighing, he eased the still form out of his arms, depositing it on his desk before finding his way around it and hefting himself in to his chair, feeling worn down by the past half hour or so. The day had been going so well up until he'd been summoned… With a sigh he slumped down, head resting heavily on the padding of the chair's back. He grunted a bit, reaching down out of habit to fix the skirt of his dress, straightening out the bunches in the fabric before they left marks and playing idly with the hem of the dress where it rested just below his knees. He fiddled idly with the material between his ungloved fingers, sighing softly before he rolled his head to the side to look at the smeet. That had been… heinous. There really was no other word for it. Yes, he'd seen blood sport before, but at least there was some semblance of a fair fight; Irken against Irken or else an Irken's intelligence, battle armor, and PAK against the shear size and brawn of some alien beast. But to kill a smeet by hand? The smeet had absolute zero chance to win that fight, with no natural defense, no better than intermediate speech and motor skills, and no knowledge of the uses of its PAK. And to fight a Controller? Not even a Tallest had a chance to win that fight, at least not without subterfuge and underhanded trickery, not to mention a slew of broken laws. He sighed again, letting the fabric of his dress slip from between his fingers, bringing up his hand to massage his head. Gnaven was always calling everyone else flawed. Irony said that that meant he was really the defective one. He wondered if he could pursue that, the idea of being stuck in the center of the planet with an unstable Control Brain enough to motivate him.

'Time to collect,' he decided as he opened up one of the draws of his desk, taking a piece of pale grey stationary paper off of a neat stack and pulling out a sleek black pen, the paper's silver trim and the gold highlights on the pen shining slightly in the light of his office. Closing the drawer with his stomach as he scooted closer to the desk, he placed down his paper, only a few inches separating the sheet from the body resting near the edge of his desk. He held the pen thoughtfully for a moment, his other hand smoothing non-existent wrinkles and dirt further out of existence. Putting pen to paper, he began his letter, Chao's claws kneading at his back.

He loved his position, he decided as he wrote. It wasn't the job, per say, but where his work put him that went beyond being enjoyable. It wasn't even the people that he knew, he reflected as he glanced back at his addressee, but his comparative influence, legitimate or not. He grinned to himself, intelligence visibly working in his eyes, as he signed his letter, the dainty black letters flowing from the pen with casual ease. He smirked slightly as he clicked button at the end of his pen, the silver nib retreating in to the body of the pen for the time being. Pushing himself back a bit, Zee opened the same desk draw as before, replacing the pen in its assigned spot and closing the draw once more. He then proceeded to open another draw, fishing out a message transport tube, holding in firmly, and managed to snag an address label with one finger and pin it to the side of the tube long enough to pull his hand out of the draw. With his letter in one hand, Zee let the label slip from his grip onto the surface of his desk, being much more careful with the tube as he placed it down and popped the lid off. Using both hands, he rolled up his letter and, once completed, picked up the tube again and placed his message inside. Holding the tube, he used one finger to tap the edge of his letter down so it wouldn't be deformed by the cap, which he picked up with his other hand and, after moving his finger, pushed it back onto the container. So done, he lay the tube down and picked up the address label, which he had filled out ahead of time. Pealing the sticker off of its backing, he held the tube still with his wrists as both hands fought to attach the label straight and wrinkle-free. After a few false starts, he placed it down, smoothing out any potential air pockets as he went.

Finished and happy with the letter's appearances, Zee grabbed the tube, turned his chair to face the wall, leaned forward, reached out, and shoved the tube in to the mail slot, where it was promptly sucked away to be processed and sent to its recipient. Face showing all the signs of contentedness, Zee turned around and stood up, pushing his chair back slightly in the process. He sighed, stretching his arms above his head and straining his neck first to the left and then to the right, a few cracks and pops accompanying his movements. Pushing up onto his toes, he stretch his back out as well, before moving his arms out to the side and finally dropping back to his feet, arms lowering to his sides. Small break finished, Zee lowered his gaze to consider the still form on his desk. After a minute or so, he walked around his desk and slid his arms under and around the smeet's body. Gently lifting the body, he pulled it securely in to his arms, holding it in a manner very similar to that used when properly holding a live smeet.

'Screw you, charlatans,' he thought as he stalked deliberately in to the center of the room, standing still as a thin line became visible in the metal that made up the floor of his office. He kept his stance as the circular platform began to lower in to the floor, exposing the grey metal and dim blue lights of the elevator shaft. The elevator descended with barely a sound, only gentle humming sounding through the duct. Without a sound or bump, the platform halted a few millimeters above the floor, waiting for Zee and his cargo to disembark before returning to the surface, lest anyone wander in and find a hole in the floor. Until it returned, nothing but a hologram would keep this place a secret.

Red gaze hardened and dark, Zee marched forward, further in to the hidden underbelly of his office. The corridor branched in to three with no arrival room; the elevator had merely been built in to the wall. The metal wasn't shiny, but clean enough to not make one flinch or draw the eye to it. The hallway was mostly barren, with only a closed door or two breaking up the smooth metal. At the end of the long, sweeping hallway, there were corridors to the left and to the right, a dead end straight-ahead. He turned right and made his way quickly down the narrower vestibule. At the end of the hallway was a large, imposing door, made smaller by how far away it was. There were four other doors before it, several yards separating the first set of parallel doors from the second. Starting from about two feet above the walls and extending upwards to about a foot below the ceiling, the metal changed from smooth paneling to long, metal strips, the sort that one would see on a garage door. Paying the rooms no mind, Zee strode down the corridor with his eyes locked on the far door. When he reached it, he shifted the body in his arms so that he could open the heavy door. He placed his hand upon a slightly lighter colored rectangle of metal attached to the door a firm push, activating the pressure transducers. It beeped, running a scan on pressure points and levels as well as a bio-signature check. Satisfied, the system pinged and the large door opened, slowly grinding upwards to reveal the infinite darkness that it hid. A second later, a row of lights flickered on, followed by the rows behind it, until the entire room was bathed in pale yellow florescent light. The entire room was really one large open space, but had been divided in to workstations and walkways by large blocks of computer equipment and metal paneling propped against and between machines.

Zee walked quickly down the central row of equipment, navigating the maze that he had made until he reached a corner at the back of the enormous laboratory. Here was step one in his latest experiment. Lining the back wall of the station were tall cylindrical tubes, their dull metal bases anchored to the floor and ceiling, hiding the machines behind the larger, better machine. Holding the body in both arms again, Zee approached the tube in the center, giving the base a prod with his shoe. A flooring panel to the right of the machine shivered, sliding down and under one of the tiles next to it. From beneath the floor, a control panel rose, an inclining block on a thin, sharp-sided arc connected to a base the same size and color as the tile it was replacing. Once more holding the smeet in one arm, Zee tapped a button on the control panel, letting the machines hum for a fraction of a second before it fulfilled his request, the shear tubing of the cylinder and its grey top sliding upwards, allowing him to place the tiny form inside. Pressing the same button as before, the glass-like pipe slide down and closed securely with a small click. Rapidly punching in a series of buttons, Zee paused to watch the affects. From the bottom of the tube, an odd, swirling liquid began to emerge. It churned slowly and awkwardly, yellows and what appeared to be purples mixing as though in slow motion. If Zee had bothered to have a pride and joy, a crown jewel of his work, this may have at one point been that favored achievement. The idea for the machine was not his own, but the vast improvements he had made to it were. First of all, his time status field tubes were much more energy efficient. After all, if he was going to be stealing power from the future of Irk, he may as well cut back instead of going wild. What was the point of bringing his master back to a diminished empire? More importantly, his improvements allowed for a much greater range of time alteration. Other machines of a similar source simply didn't work at the levels he needed them to. In this case, he needed to essentially stop the affects of time on the body. The machine couldn't really stop time, but slow it down to the point that, for all intents and purposes other than specifically stopping time, it stopped time.

Now, onto other, harder things. With the body so preserved, he had to decide what he wanted to do with the smeet. He could just leave it in the status field as he studied it, to prevent the body from decomposing, or he could revive the smeet for live observation. In all honesty, brining Irkens back from the dead wasn't hard at all. They were grown in labs anyway, so a simple DNA sample could be used to grow an Irken a body identical to their old one, minus any changes incurred during life, such as scars. Smeets were even easier, since it was very rare to find a smeet with scars. Usually at so young an age, a damaged smeet would simply be destroyed and another made to fill its place; smeets just didn't have enough life experience to really contribute anything to the Empire, only their potential as full-grown Irkens. For both, memories took virtually no effort to reinstate. All that needed to be done was move the Irken's PAK onto their new body. But for this one… He really wasn't quite sure what affect the smeet's memories would have if he revived it. Adult Irkens were taught to embrace death, so long as they died for the Empire or at the Empire's hand. That was an honorable death; giving ones life to better the Empire by serving it or having your progress-hindering self removed from the Empire.

'Wait a minute…' There was a thought. He'd been thinking so much about what he was going to do with the smeet, he hadn't even bothered to find out its name. It didn't really mean anything unless he revived it, but now that the tiny Irken was of real interest to him, he may at least have the decency to refer to it as something other than 'smeet.' Walking briskly over to a metal table with miscellaneous supplies set neatly around three of its sides, he picked up a pair of seemingly ordinary latex gloves. Pulling on the off-yellow safety measure with a sharp snap, he made his way back to the time status containment unit, pressing another button on the control panel. A few feet from floor level, at a comfortable height for Zee to work, a hole appeared in the tubing. The machine kept the status field in check, however, so none of the yellow and purple anomaly leaked from the container. Without hesitation, Zee reached in to the tube, gently nudging the smeet in to a workable position with his covered fingertips. Once in a convenient position, Zee pressed one finger against the pink patch around the top of the small Irken's PAK, depressing the spot and releasing as the hatch popped open. Tongue poking out slightly in concentration, Zee hooked just the first joint of two of his fingers in to the PAK, twitching them around in search of the data cable he knew was contained somewhere underneath the metal shell. Unfortunately, the smeet's vertical position put the opening at a bad angle to penetrate, especially considering the comparative size of his fingers and the size of the port he was working with.

Removing his digits from the smeet's PAK, Zee hooked one finger on the other male's shoulder, pulling him closer to the glass and also in to a horizontal position. Once the smeet was suspended rather eerily on its back, he placed his finger under its side, carefully pushing up and over until the smeet has rolled to hang in suspended animation on its stomach. Now he had better access to the PAK and didn't have to worry about jarring the small Irken's head while working. Working his fingers back inside the PAK, he frowned, pulling them back out and reinserting his pointer finger and thumb. Biting down slightly in his tongue, Zee leaned against the smooth curve of the tube as he tried to move his digits deeper, brushing something just out of reach. With a soft grunt, Zee pushed his fingers deeper, feeling the metal that comprised the edge of the access point digging in to his latex covered digits. Ah, but there was the cable he was looking for. Forcing his fingers just a little deeper, he was able to get a grip on the cable's circular connection plug, grasping it between thumb and forefinger. Carefully, as not to let the cable slip from between his fingers, Zee pulled his hand back, biting back as soft hiss as he had to pull trapped flesh and latex out from the metal edge of the tight port. With a small smirk of victory, Zee freed his fingers, data cable caught between them.

Removing his hand from the tube, Zee carefully passed the cable to his other hand so that he could push a button on the control panel to close the hole in the tube, making it constrict around the cable. So sealed, Zee began walking towards a computer bank that made up one of the walls, his progress reflected in the large black screen. When he reached it, Zee reached forward, gently tapping at the keyboard, awakening the slumbering machine. A few more keystrokes and a panel slid free on a large, smooth plane of metal to the left of the monitor. Attaching the data cable to the newly revealed cable port, Zee turned back to the keyboard, both hands now free to initiate a file transfer. His job done, Zee pulled his hands away from the computer, clenching his hands in to fists until he heard the satisfying pop of his knuckles, no doubt a sign of completing hard work. Cracking his neck as well, Zee stood before the computer, staring out with relaxed eyes, head tilted to one side, and arms folded loosely over his chest, watching the green bar advanced towards completion. He tapped his fingers against his arms, eyes rolling about a bit in search of something interesting before settling back on the computer screen.

The data extraction progress bar slowly crawled towards completion. It was truly amazing how much a smeet as young as this one took in. Without the data downloads, information was chaotically unorganized, a giant mess of unanswered questions, set upon for a second before being abandoned in the face of a new inquiry. At least the standard information package was organized… Ah, there it went, almost done. The computer beeped as it finished its task, a new window opening to display the contents of the smeet's PAK. At the top of the page, the smeet identification number was displayed in large letters: GI1CSoCM524152751814411. In other words, a male smeet destined for the soldier class decanted in the general smeet laboratories at Irk's core. Actual, pronounceable name: Cinsiyet.

'Not for long,' Zee mused. An opportunity like this was rare in presenting itself and therefore utmost care had to be taken in extracting the largest amount of information possible from the subject. Which meant he needed the smeet alive. Which meant that he needed a new name, since Cinsiyet was registered as defective, not to mention dead. It was ridiculously easy, he thought as he opened a new window and began to type, to change one's identity within the Empire. Especially given his influence and affluence. His fingers slowed, hovering over the keys as he gazed at the fake ID he was creating. The smeet would need a new name… Finally, he typed in a name and moved on. Laboratory created at: Custom Laboratory; Irk. Class: Student; Apprentice (D.S.H. (Irk, Core)). Gender: Male. Creation number: 125157114.

There, a new Irken. CI1StCM125157114, to be better known as his apprentice, automatically inheriting his status as an elite. Now all he had to do was revive the body of the smeet formerly known as Cinsiyet. Typing a string of commands in to the computer, he let it process and, once given confirmation that the orders would be executed, moved back to the status tube the young male's body was being held in. There really wasn't that much work to do with the body. Really, all he had to do was fix or replace the brain and reboot the PAK, which would then spark the tiny body back to life. Although Irkens need it to function properly, the brain really wasn't that important. All it really did was act as a link between the PAK and an Irken's organic shell, translating the PAK's signals in to electric pulses the rest of the body could understand. Which, in this case, would bring the smeet back from Irkalla.

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I claim no credit what so-ever for the idea of Irkalla. It's not an original concept, but a mythological underworld. The basis is that it is the holding place for those who are not really dead yet or were wrongly killed and capable of being saved. The souls only stay there for a short time, however. If not revived, the soul will rot and, ultimately, die in Irkalla. I figure it's a good concept for Irkens, since they don't seem like they'd want or believe in any sort of higher being or afterlife, but clearly they know they can come from being dead, since they're revived by their PAKs when possible.

As a last note, dialogue, what's dialogue? Yeah, sorry 'bout the lack of conversations, but for the bulk of this Zee didn't have anyone to talk to. So speech had to be sacrificed so Zee didn't become a mad scientist who talks to himself. He's not crazy, just a bit lawless. And, yes, a cross dresser. Why? Because he needed to wear a maid's dress. He just did.


	2. Grey Screen

Author's Note: Yar, thar be dialogue ahead! Or, at the very least, monologue.

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HeMeleNoLiloLover: Thank you for the compliments and the fave. Excuse my burst of flailing and sputtering, but on your favorites list are some absolutely _awesome_ works. When on a list with such works as "Choices"! there is no choice for me but to squee and use an emotion interjection. Because that's just how much awesome that story is.

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ri2: They are a group of oddities, aren't they? Although I don't think Cinsiyet is really a hermaphrodite because, from the information I've found, that means he needs to have both male and female reproductive organs, sterile or otherwise. I think he's more of just a general intersexed mix, with only one set of reproductive organs but a mix of male and female traits in other areas.

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Wikitiki99: Thank you for the fave!

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Grey Screen

It was odd, the sensation of feeling everything and nothing all at once. Everything because he could not remember ever feeling anything before and nothing because he was floating in a void of pale, misty grey. Not doing anything, perhaps not even breathing. He wasn't sure, because he couldn't remember if he'd ever preformed that particular biological function before and didn't know if there was any air, or even any need to breath, in the void. So he just floated, completely relaxed, staring up in to the void with half lidded eyes. He assumed all of this should be pleasant and that, perhaps, he should be happy. But he was quite sure that he had never been happy or unhappy or felt any sort of real emotion, and therefore had nothing to compare his current state to. So he just drifted, although there was nothing to see but the grey and so he couldn't confirm whether he was drifting or just floating in one place, allowing the nothingness to give him some semblance of completion. Before him there was nothing. Around him there was nothing. And for this he was… glad, to the best of his knowledge.

It was strange, this comprehension and yet he was not in a state of mind to ponder over his cognitive abilities. He didn't even known if he was alive, though he doubted it. If this was life or, more specifically, his life than it was a very poor one as far as he was concerned. Perhaps others had it worse off, but it this was as good as it got than life was a copout.

"That it is, that it is," a voice mused. He had no idea where the speaker was, since he hadn't yet developed the ability to detect the direction from which sound reached him. He was left shivering, struggling to sit up and curl himself in to a small ball that would do absolutely nothing to protect him but would make him feel at least a bit better anyway. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was slowly drift up and over, a sort of summersault that landed him right back in the position he had been trying to get out of. Apparently there wasn't much in the way of gravity wherever he was.

Just as there was no way to tell if he was moving, there was no way to determine the passage of time. He had no idea how long he had floated through the void in total, or how long it had been since he had heard the soft voice musing somewhere beyond his range of vision. But at some point in time he began distinguishing something that was not made of the same misty material as the rest of the void. It was nothing more than a blurry little smudge, just a shade or two darker than everything else. However, it was different and therefore fascinating. If nothing else, it gave him something to focus on, something that wasn't as static as everything else, being that the blotch was clearly getting larger. That or he was so bored by the monotony of the void that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or it could have been his brain, as in cases such as this one should never rule out the possibility of insanity.

"But insanity is all there is," the voice said, drifting to him from the grey beyond. "Just as normalcy is a figment of existences' collective imagination. To be in a state of pure normalcy everyone would have to be exactly the same, the slightest difference in any facet rendering the individual in question to be imperfect, on the basis of deviating from the established norm. Being that this is not the case, perhaps bar the simplest of single-celled organisms, sanity can no more exist than normalcy can."

That… That just made his head hurt. He had to admit, if that voice was a product of his own mind, his mind was damn philosophical. Too much so, he decided, as his antennae lowered to rest closer to his aching skull. Had he just made his own head hurt? If so, that was… most unfortunate, considering the distinct possibility of being stuck with only his sapient mind for company. Or at least he thought he was being deep; that whole conversation could have been a product of the very insanity it insisted everyone possessed.

"No, good guess, though. I'm not a figment of your imagination, only another entity drifting by on the flow of reality, forced to follow the plane of time wherever it goes."

He stared straight ahead. He looked to the left. He looked to the right. He glanced up. He twisted his neck to look beneath himself as best he could. He finished his spot check by straining his neck backwards to check behind himself. No one in any direction. Well, that was that. He was officially, undeniably crazy. Completely out-of-his-mind bonkers. Well, at least he'd be moderately entertained and vastly perturbed for the duration of his life inside the void.

"Oh please. You're no crazier than anyone else. In fact, you're actually moderately sane, as sane as any being capable of so-called higher thinking can be, at any rate."

No one there, no one there. He stared in the direction he assumed was skyward, yielding to his own insanity with absolutely no fight. Wasn't like there was anything he could do about it. This was probably just one of those environmental insanities, the kind you got when you were stuck in a cave or a desert. If he ever got out of the void, assuming there was anything besides the void, he hoped he'd come out a-okay and with only one voice in his head. His own, that is, not this other voice.

"I'm not _in_ your head. I'm just outside your range of vision."

Inside my head…

"No… Outside of your head, in what you have so uncreatively christened 'the void.' For the record, you're dead. Welcome to Limbo."

Well, that stopped his brain in its tracks for all of fifteen seconds. Then he decided one of two things had just happened. The first option being that he wasn't insane and there really was someone else beyond his range of vision. Or it could be that whatever part of his brain was insane had somehow wound up much more informed than whatever small scrap of sanity he possessed. Which just wasn't fair at all, he decided. Or maybe his lunacy wasn't clued-up in the least but creative and had simply fabricated its intelligence. Which was nothing short of a stoke of brilliance, in the opinion of his sound mind.

"Your 'insanity' isn't informed, it's fabricated. You want to be sane? Fine than, just grab onto the fact that I'm telling you I'm not part of your imagination. See? Look at that, an easy way out! A simple solution has just presented itself to you, you don't just let opportunity like that slip away. You jump on it; it's not that hard."

That's it, he decided. Life was a copout. His insanity was a copout. His life -he could find no eloquent word to describe how he felt- out and out _sucked_.

"Oh please," the voice grumbled. "You didn't even live long for your life to, as you put it, suck. You want to know how bad life is? You weren't even alive an hour and it'll take at least a month for you to be processed in to the afterlife. Why? Because self-government and bureaucracy don't mix. But that's what happens when you try to hyper-organize half a dozen people in order to micromanage the portfolio life."

What. The. Hell.

"My sentiments exactly. Upon my own induction in to the afterlife, that is. You should come to find that attempting to rationalize existence, be it life, death, or otherwise, is an exercise in futility. Unless you're into that kind of thing, that is."

He knew his brain had stopped. Frozen? Definitely. Shut down? He couldn't tell, though he wouldn't be surprised if it had simply skipped both and went straight to melting. Too bad he didn't have ears for his liquefied mind to leak out of. From where than? His mouth? Ew, he certainly hoped not. His tear ducts? Still disgusting, but at least he wouldn't have to taste the remnants of his brain. Unless it dripped down in to his mouth and he… Okay, now he just felt sick. He wondered if could actually throw up. Did he even have a stomach?

"Wow, your thought train just screams, "Look at me! I'm a total newbie!" doesn't it?"

Besides answers to his questions, he also wished for some sort of solid object. He didn't really care what, just something large enough to bang his head against. If he was dead, this could not possibly be heaven, because he wanted to slam his head against something, anything, until he black out, preferably in to a coma.

"My, my, I do seem to make an awful lot of people want to do that, don't I? A talent that is not entirely unuseful, I must say, to make people wish for torpor of any form. As far as answers, there is only so much information I can provide you with. Since you were barely even decanted at the time of your death, you have been… gifted with mental prowess that far exceeds your physical age. And you've grown, too. Other than that, your body is as it was when you died. Minus the need to eat and breathe and whatnot so long as you don't take on a physical form."

As the voice had rattled on, in what he sincerely hoped was not a parlance but an attempt to impress, he glanced down to examine himself. Wow was his body _boring_. There was absolutely nothing that he could see besides uninterrupted pale green flesh. The only interesting thing about himself, as far as he was concerned, was the fact that he was vaguely transparent. Which would have been a lot cooler had there been anything in the void worth looking at.

"Actually, there's plenty to see. Limbo is rather like a window, or perhaps more like a two-way mirror. We exist here, outside the scope of the living world. We're not actually on their plane, but layered over it. We can see them, if we open the proverbial blinds, but they cannot see us nor can anyone from either plane interact with anything not immediately on their stratum. You'll just need to get some practice in before you can do anything but float."

Okay, so at this point life, his insanity, the void, and death all managed to suck. Damn, his life, or lack thereof, was going to be miserable, wasn't it?

"Well of course death isn't going to be a cakewalk. You _died_; cashed in your chips for a one-way ticket to go west to meet your maker after buying the farm where you'd push up daises after kicking the bucket. More specifically, you suffocated. You're not on some drug-induced trip to the magically sparkly land of sprinkles and little scantily-clad flying people, or whatever such happy nonsense smeets dream about."

Scantily-clad? Damn, that made him, or at least smeets in general, sound like some sort of pervert in training.

"Absolutely not the case. There is a clear line between nudity as a perversion and nudity as a way of life. Smeets dream of those things as an expression of their mind's desires: to run free unrestrained by rules or uniforms and eat all the delicious, sugar-loaded junk they can fit in to themselves. Just as there is a line between smut and science, however much trouble most people have in identifying it."

What…? How had they even gotten on to this topic?

"In a very roundabout manner," the other informed him.

Well _obviously_. Since he didn't seem to need to talk for the other to hear him, he didn't bother trying to find out if he was actually articulate. Who are you anyway?

"Me? Ah, just some poor bastard who got too caught up in the dealings of the Empire for his own good. Enlightened, since death I suppose, but a poor bastard in life. In death, though, I like to think of myself as something of kindred spirit to those in need, a mentor and a guide to those I empathize with. A father or big brother figure, so to speak."

So basically you pity me and are therefore keeping me company as well as giving me information that is largely unhelpful.

"Hell no. It's called boredom. And I think I'd find a way to obtain a permanent physical form for the singular purpose of killing myself if I ever pitied anyone. You think your life was a travesty? You didn't even live an hour, you whiny little neonate. That's not suffering; that's mercy. You think this void is torture? Be glad you never had to bother with the whole ordeal of actually going through life."

Oh, yes, my sincerest apologies for being killed. I should have never bothered with the whole loving thing, since it's so _horrible_ and all that. This other was bringing out the worst in him, wasn't it?

"I'm not an it, you intersexed twat, I'm a male. Definitely and indisputably, unlike you."

If it had been just about any other time and place, his mind would have likely gone in to overdrive to figure out which meaning of 'twat' the other meant. Not that either was a pretty option, but he had a clear preference for usage, which he simply stuck with for the sake of simplicity.

"Yes, well, it's all very well and good that I've been given insight and whatnot but doesn't mean I'm actually educated. Not stupid or incompetent, I would say, but certainly I have a bit of a right to ignorance."

"Oh, look at that, you _can_ talk. Happy now? Also, for the record, never admit to being uneducated. I mean really."

He glared out at the void, eyes narrowed and mouth set in to an angry pout, although he really meant for it to be a scowl. He supposed, assuming he really had been artificially aged, it still didn't remove all the childish qualities from his person. Like pouting, for example.

"Ah, but aren't we all children somewhere deep down within ourselves? Not necessarily hidden away to repress the child inside, but to garner ourselves some respect. Plus, when all else fails, you can let out the child and hope cute, cuddly, clumsy, and adorable clueless, yet still somehow insightful, saves your otherwise dead hide."

At this point, he was all but ready to give up. He wondered if he might be able to save himself a lot of trouble and just gnaw one of his own limbs off to pass time. That or tear his antennae off; both were sounding evermore appealing the longer he conversed with the unknown entity.

"Hooray for me." When his eyes refocused, he was quite sure he screamed, although he may not have. What he was sure of was that he went careening backwards through the void, flailing his arms like there was no tomorrow –which there probably wasn't- or like he was attempting to escape from hell, which was a lot more likely. This was certainly a case where his enhanced mental capabilities didn't help him in the least. It wasn't the other's appearances that made him scurry away whilst screaming, but his appearance. Just the fact that there was something physically tangible in front of him, let alone another person, was great. But the other really really _really_ did _not_ have to materialize so suddenly.

Once he was sure that the other wasn't going to lunge forward and fulfill his early musing on removing a bodily appendage or two, and that he wasn't going to somehow manage to die when apparently already dead, he took the other's visibility as a go-ahead to look him over.

He could recognize the other as a member of his own species but that's where his comprehension of what he was looking at ended. The other was floating in a mostly upright position, leaning forward just slightly but with boot-clad feet decided underneath the rest of his body. The other had pale eyes that almost blended in with the rest of his body due his transparency. Male; for he was quite sure that antennae ending in straight, albeit bent, tips were a masculine definer. His companion's clothing was simple in his opinion, but rather exotic and also a bit skimpy in the opinion of the Empire he had so briefly been a part of. The other's shirt was, as far as he could tell, a yellow that was several shades brighter than his eyes, which rather distracted from the pale orbs and made them just that much harder to see. It was short sleeved and loose fitting, the collar dipping in a wide sweep to expose a delicate collarbone, just beneath the hollow of which a small triangular cut was made into the collar to reveal just a bit more semi translucent flesh. The shirt looked like it had seen better days, with a large dark blotch of a stain domination the left side of the garment on the lower part of his chest and extending downwards. The right sleeve was also a torn along the top, not quite in the middle but a bit closer to the edge of the collar. There was another, smaller stain of the dark substance around the rip. Actually, there was quite a lot of the substance on the other's face. There was a long, thin line of it over his right eye that trailed downward in larger quantities, flowing around his eye and, on the far right side, traveling in small streams to end at his cheek. There were three dark wavering lines above his left eye and on the cheek beneath were two darker lines, more of the substance trailing from one down to the other and finally off his face roughly between his cheek and chin. It was fascinating, actually, and he wondered what the substance was that so copiously coated the other's visage. So great was his interest, that the other's plain black pants and boots were entirely disregarded in his wonderment.

"For the record," the other grumbled, likely due to the excessive staring, "my name is Trenzi."

-

"Before you ask, yours is Cinsiyet."

Finally, a name! Both the other's, no longer an unidentified entity, and his own. Now _that_ was pertinent information. That and it simply made him feel better. Things seemed just so much more tangible, so much more bearable and controllable, when they had names. Death, Limbo, Trenzi, Cinsiyet. So _so_ much better than Someplace, Void, Voice that may be in my head, and Me, whoever that is.

"Ah, but alas, your time is running short."

"I thought you said that I was dead."

"Yes, that you are. However, the jury grows tired of your case. You have them in quite the upset, you know. 'Love the sinner, not the sin' and all that. They just don't know what to do with you. You embody the sin that so many avoid, yet you yourself did not live long enough to be of mind to sin. Therefore, what are they to do with you? Punish you for being born, or let you off scot-free and send you on to Elysian- which seems to be the ultimate goal of the afterlife. And they really don't went to send you straight to Elysian; they haven't done that for ten million some-odd years, not since Farook and Leor, I believe. Not that those names mean anything to you now, but some day, I suppose."

Cinsiyet, for he now knew his name, flinched suddenly as a sharp pain stabbed at his brain. He shook it off, however, as soon as it began to subside. Nice to know at least he'd be able to experience tactile sensations.

"And until than you'll have Thil, I suppose."

"Thil?" he asked, wincing slightly as pain lanced along his nerves once more.

"Oh, yes, I do believe you'll be seeing quite a lot of him. Affectionate little fellow, unfortunately hard to hate since I myself do find him rather annoying."

Cinsiyet nodded in understanding. Although he had clearly never been in such a position, he could imagine it and the conundrum it had the potential to present. As he did, however, he felt a sharp tug at his hard that caused him to gasp, unable to breath. His eyes widened when the pain didn't relinquish its hold on him and he found himself unable to draw the oxygen that he had been told he didn't need. One of his hands flew upwards, grasping at his chest, still-small fingers digging in despite the fact that he had previously thought he wasn't entirely solid. He gasped, chest rising and falling rapidly, if only barely. He couldn't get enough air, couldn't breath…! His eyes were wide and they darted about rapidly, looking for something, anything, to help him. There was only the grey of the void and the pale, partially transparent Trenzi, who looked down at him with a sort of benign, if slightly wistful, smile. Why wasn't he helping!?

"Don't fret, small one. You are being Recalled. To life. Someone is bringing you back, giving your body life once more. I suppose that stops the counsels deliberation in its tracks, doesn't it?" The wistful look extended to his pale eyes, but was gone when he blinked and he found the other's gazed hardened with determination. "Go, live," he commanded. "We will meet again, I can assure you." With that an odd smirk crossed the other's face, eyes unfocusing for barely a minute before returning their gaze to him. He was fading from death quickly, and as his body became even less substantial, he distinctly heard Trenzi singing, the sound fading farther and farther away as he left death to return to the land of the living.

"Let me know that I've done wrong, when I've known this all along. I go around a time or two just to waste my time with you. Tell me all that you've thrown away. Find out games you don't wanna play. You are the only one that needs to know. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret.

"Who has to know? When we live such fragile lives it's the best way we survive. I go around a time or two just to waste my time with you. Tell me all that you've thrown away. Find out games you don't wanna play. You are the only one that needs to know. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret. Dirty little secret… Dirty little secret… Who has to know? Who has to know?"

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Whoo! 3,674 words of story after Cinsiyet died in the last chapter, 3,703 words to this chapter, minus Trenzi's singing at the end because Cinsiyet was only barely clinging to death.


	3. Parse

A/N: At some point I'm considering doing a sort of sequel to this. I don't think I'll add it to Contravene simply because of a very large - and by that I mean more than ten years - time skip. In other news, I seem to have once again written a story such that most people can't get past the first chapter. I think it's one of my writing talents, the other being the ability to turn a very little bit of information into a nice long essay.

Other stuffs: First of all, I'd like to direct you all to a fanfiction that has not been posted up on FFN but instead on DeviantArt. Entitled "The Proof" it is written by invader-mandy. The first chapter has been well-received and I'd like to say it's happily error free; I was one of the betas.

Second, whilst you're on DeviantArt, you can also go poke at my own account, Moga, and see both old art I won't claim to be proud of anymore and some new work. Although it's not the most impressive of work, for the sheer lazy simplicity of it, I've posted up two images related to Contravene. I say they're lazy pieces because all they show is one eye of each character with a notable role in the chapter. I've got one for the first chapter depicting Zee, Cinsiyet, Mimar, and Gnaven; and one for the second chapter with Trenzi and Cinsiyet. And yes, I did the blood around Trenzi's eye and attempted to make both of the boys partially transparent, though the effect doesn't work very well since there isn't much behind them. I've also got two more pieces lined up to post after I get this chapter up. It would have been one but I couldn't really work five people into the grid without shrinking or overlapping anyone. So I pulled out Felix and gave him a separate head and shoulders image, complete with background. I've also posted up a good-lengthed journal entry on my DA account with RHETI personality tests for everyone who appeared in chapters one and two – again substantial roles only, so basically if they're in one of the aforementioned pictures I did the test for them.

Last note, for anyone who has heard of it, and those of you who haven't, there is in existence a site that I find to be quite a lot of fun: NationStates. Basically, you create your own fictitious country and set about governing. I guess it's something of an RP but it it's text-based, no images really. Just because I could, I set one up for Trenzi. Called it Asphodel Meadows, if anyone is interested in it. Trenzi is supposed to speak well, so I figured it would be amusing to set him up as head of a country and see what happens.

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Wikitiki99: Thanks for the watch in addition to the fave! But this might be the last chapter to this story. There was another chapter planned, but I might cut it and make it the first chapter of a sequel story.

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loalaa: Thanks for the watch! Again, this might be the last chapter.

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Parse

Felix scowled, disapproval clear in his cold red eyes. In his bare hands he held a piece of pale grey stationary, silver trim unseen in the near nonexistent light of the ship's belly. He didn't need anymore than the stray bits of light filtering down from above the canopy of wires that hid the ceiling to read the missive written in thin, neat lettering. His fingers tightened around the paper, crushing the declaration that had been so meticulously packaged.

His mind was in nasty place, stuck between the want to hate and the inability to do so. This… This was _his_ fault. His face twisted in rage, antennae almost hearing the other at that moment, likely dozing happily in a nest of wires. But no, he forced himself to relax. He couldn't hate the other, not truly hate him. Only a façade of anger, a lie to which he refused to subscribe. He was above such subterfuge; above all of it. Heck, he could honestly say he was above most of the universe. It was true, after all; it wasn't just him telling that to himself to improve his mood.

He sighed, dark red eyes closing as he forced himself to relax, loosening his chokehold on the letter. His antennae lowered, resting, as his body slumped slightly in the darkness. There was no one else there, so he found no reason not to allow himself a moment of peace and comparative relaxation. Things had been busy lately. He hadn't needed this on top of everything else. He knew he should have stopped Zee sooner, should have called him out and dragged him in for trial. However, he knew he'd be under the knife instead of Zee; the other had too much on him.

There were soft footsteps approaching, irregular and lacking the usually clumping of boots. Just the soft padding of flesh against metal, drawing steadily closer. Felix kept his eyes closed, feeling peace within the immediate area. From the edges of his perception field, worry sparked. It grew, drawing closer on gentle feet. But he stayed right were he was. There was no ill intent present and even if there was, he knew it would not really be directed at his person, but at some other, a new one every time and the same name at every outburst.

"Myyur?" A light weight rested on each of his shoulders, the soft voice cooing to him and him alone. Just as it always had. Just as it always would. There was warmth on his face; gentle, nonsensical cooing washing over his antennae as a soft cheek rubbed against his own. It was a sort of comfort unknown to any other Irken, something so ancient that it had been forgotten, swept away by the sands of time and lost from the annals of history. At the same time, it was so familiar that he would have leaned in to the touch, would have been relaxed instantly, if it were not for his modern brains.

It was odd, he mused, how used to them he had become. They were just another part of his life now, even though he had sworn to hate them up to and after he died and decomposed past the point of recognition. They had been so awkward in the beginning, a pulling weight that wasn't in the least bit natural. He could remember stumbling around the first day, forced to move continuously or else fall over backwards from the new weight on his back. Then there was the second one, the one he had hated even more. The first hadn't been so bad, because at least everyone had one. But the second one had caused so much pain, had ripped away who he once was. He still couldn't really remember who he had been, only that he had been vastly different from his present self. It had _hurt_, ripping away his heritage to conform him, bowing him to the omnipresent hand of the empire. He became someone, was given a name amongst the masses, but only at the expense of killing off who he had been.

He hadn't been able to walk properly after the second one was fused to him either. Actually, he hadn't even been able to stand up. He had been so inundated with pain killers, antibiotics, and other drugs that he couldn't even remember the names of, that he hadn't even been able to roll over in bed if he had wanted to. He was quite sure that the second procedure should have killed him. It wasn't natural, hadn't even _existed_ until it was used on him. The first time he stood after the operation, he was sure that the PAK was going to fall right off, rip away from his body, and take his stomach with it. It was horrible, the constant tugging at his belly. If he stood, gravity drew it to the floor. If he sat, it still tried to slid downwards. If he lay down, it pressed against him, a constant strain on his stomach.

He was also positive that the operation had left a hole in him. He wasn't sure what was once there or why whatever had been there had been removed, but he could feel it. It was a small space just above his stomach but underneath his heart, where, if he pressed his finger against it, he could press inwards until his flesh refused to give anymore or his finger couldn't make the dent any deeper due to its small size.

The other exhaled, licking at his cheek in lieu of a kiss. Not that the other didn't want such a close relationship, osculation was just an awkward gesture for the other on an anatomical level. He let out his own breath, allowing the other to continue unabated. Neither helped nor hindered, the other would continue on until he got tired, hungry, thirsty, or just plain bored. Felix would admit that the other was dedicated, but he was also notoriously scatter-brained. Which, Felix knew, was not in the least bit his fault.

Tied to the other by half of his genetic information, Felix had to take on the task of managing both his own pride and that of his father, who was in no state to take care of himself. Well, he could, but not very well. And he therefore made a point to tell everyone who had any actual importance that his father wasn't born that way.

Mentally shaking his head, Felix shrugged his father off, the ancient, almost alien, progenitor releasing him without fuss. That was the wonderful thing about his father, he supposed. He managed to be doting and protective without being truly overbearing. He supposed it had something to do with the mental fetters that made his father so childish. Or he could have just had the sort of personality that was easy to tolerate.

Felix closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply before putting his mask back in place. His eyes opened again, cold, dark, and emotionless. Face set into a mask that was not quite blank but bearing more than a slight hint of censure, he swept from the dark room. He entered a hallway that was only slightly better lit than the room he had just exited, the long bars of overhead lights kept purposely dim. The dark lighting and barren metal hallway produced an ominous feeling, which was exactly the desired effect. Head held high and scorn lurking behind his eyes, Felix marched down the hallway, his father in tow. While Felix's confidence would make most believe that he did indeed belong in the bowels of the ship - though why he would want to be there would elude them - his father looked entirely out of place. With wide, bright eyes and a bounce in each trotting step, he looked more like a smeet who had set off to have an adventure than in possession of the stoicism that was practically required for admittance to the depths of the ship. However, he had roamed these hallways at least as many times as Felix had, perhaps even more times than had the petite male.

Moving rather quickly, but with purpose in his stride, Felix entered his element. It was an enormous room, once again hardly lit at all, so massive that neither the edges of the walls - for the room was circular and therefore had no corners - nor the ceiling could be discerned but by perhaps the very keenest of Irken eyes. The farthest wall was completely covered with blinking lights in soft blues, gentle greens, and yellows so pale they were almost white. They winked out from the darkness, flickering from place to place as continuous streams of data were processed. He strode through the thick darkness towards the middle of the room. There, from behind the inky blackness, a soft cone of light appeared, falling downwards from a light somewhere above, illuminating a dais. The platform was modest, not fit for a king but certainly implying that those on it held some sort of importance. It was a tiered platform, with another raised section in the center of the first. It was this pinnacle that he walked up to, his father trotting at his heels.

He stood motionless on the platform for only a second before spinning around sharply, purple cloak flowing with his movement. The garment was so heavy, however, that nothing that might have been beneath it was revealed. He stood tall on the platform, back stiff and straight, head held high with pride and power, and eyes demanding that his authority be recognized and unchallenged.

Which it was. From out of the ubiquitous darkness appeared his loyal subjects; his council. There were only two of them, many times his size and much older than he himself was. The first one to appear, as always, was Smidge. She was the oldest of the three of them, a female with yellow-green eyes set into a Tyrian red hull. Her eyes were alert, intelligence wisely dimmed to hide an agenda of duplicity. He knew all about this, of course, and couldn't exactly say he disapproved of her plans. History - the entirety of which he could access on any given whim - supported her purported changes and he didn't feel the need to argue with the past.

The second was smaller than Smidge by a several inches of circumference. Con was also younger, but, for Controllers, age didn't have much to do with size. His eyes were just a shade or two lighter than the standard red, and hard to tell if he wasn't next to someone with such cut-and-dried eyes. He had a shy, nervous personality and an aversion to arguments that seemed nothing like what a Control Brain should be.

They were his council because their personalities allowed him peace of mind. He knew they would not use his weaknesses against him, for he had no choice but to let the other two find them out. Head Control Brain Felix had put a lot of time and effort in to not forming attachments to anyone or anything. However, it was impossible not to at least extend lenience and tolerance to his father, who had raised him from smeethood on his own. He didn't really know his mother, although he had met her on occasion. She was his Irken half and had only gotten involved with his father out of curiosity and the belief that they weren't genetically compatible. When he had met her, he queried on how, exactly, a sterile Irken had produced a child. Apparently she hadn't actually given birth to him; something about his father extracting something or other from her without her permission and somehow turning genetic information in to an egg, which he had incubated and hatched alone after she left him, feeling confused and betrayed.

His second and last weakness was in Con's tentacles. Fyla was a small creature of his subconscious's creation, born of his mind, made of fire, and in the form of a young Irken. Despite the fact that she was, technically, a part of him, she had too much of a personality to be contained. He could recall her in to her true form and absorb her back in to his body, but the effort required to force her to transform and than keep her contained just wasn't worth it. So he kept her down in the bowels of the ship, where she still wasn't really happy but understood the fact that she wouldn't blend in with real Irkens. It wasn't her size, since she was in the form of a young Irken, but her individualism and lack of dress code conformity.

Her eyes were bright with energy, a shining red-orange color reminiscent of the flames she was made of. Her shirt was a slightly burnt salmon color with short sleeves and a loose collar. She wore a short, sharply ruffled white skirt that didn't even reach her knees but did cover all the necessities. Flat-soled boots of the same color came up to just below her knees, shaped rather like standard issue boots except that they flared outward beginning at the ankles and widened as the boots rose higher. Her gloves, also white, were short and reached only to just above her wrists. They were fingerless, ending in neat holes around the first joint of each finger. The gloves were really slightly longer than they appeared, but had been folded over to make a double layer of fabric around the wrist and to add a bit more style to the gloves. Not that many other Irkens would wear gloves like hers, but that seemed to be besides the point.

Smidge gazed at him, an expectant look in her eyes that said without words: "You called us and we came. We are ready." He returned her look with one of his one, a non-visual nod of acknowledgment to the unspoken statement.  
"I don't think I need to remind any of you about the questionable work of Head Director Zee. It seems he has once again taken it upon himself to pursue the call of science, in a sense of the word. It appears that a smeet at Irk's core Hatchery was decanted intersexed – neither entirely male or female. Of course it was promptly disposed of, although in an improper manner that, due to the severity of the violation of protocol, will also need to be dealt with, albeit as a separate issue and at a later time. First and foremost we will need to deal with the smeet. Although it was destroyed, Zee was able to salvage the body and has sent me a letter of intent to revive the smeet for research purposes."

"For just a gender defect?" Smidge interjected. "I honestly don't see much in the way of valuable information to be gleaned. It wasn't fertile was it? … Did have a full set of both male and female reproductive organs, because that could be useful during an epidemic or some such."

"No, the smeet was supposed to be male but was decanted with almost all the signs of being female. He wants it for the physiological research; there are few defects capable of physiological study comparable to those preformed on normal Irkens because most defects have mental abnormalities. This smeet has a physical defect sever enough to warrant destroying it, yet could be easily blended in with the masses; given someone willing to provide cover of some sort. However, in order to keep such an Irken hidden, it would need to be educated on the fact that it is indeed defective. That would seem to most to be the antithesis of progress, but it is required that the smeet understand its deficiency in order for it to properly carry out its social duties as either entirely male or entirely female."

Con nodded slightly, understanding from experience. Smidge, however, had to consider what she had just heard. Her tentacles twitched, two near the front of the subtly writhing mass of silvery grey cables moving into a 'thinking' position, with one tentacle supporting a second that rested at her mouth.

"I don't think it's so much a foray into the science of sexuality as an experiment on social roles," she said after a moment's pause. "By taking an individual of unidentifiable gender and placing it into a consummate male-female society where all anatomical and psychological faults are eliminated, the individual is forced into choosing one of the established gender roles, potentially at the expense of its own mental wellbeing, or being forever ostracized from society, perhaps to the point of being killed or pushed to suicide."

Con let out a soft whimper as Felix nodded, mulling over what Smidge had said. Fyla patted one of Con's tentacles before speaking up. "But wouldn't the smeet have at least one friend?"

Smidge shook her head, her entire shell in essence. "Highly unlikely," she said gently. "To have a real 'friend' would require honesty the smeet cannot afford: to admit to its deformity and likely be turned in as a defect. Perhaps it could have an illusion of companionship, but whether or not it will understand that it lacks true comradery would be hinged on personality and insight. If it were to truly believe that it had found amity than there would be no problem and it would happily live in only partial truth."

"Yeah, I _know_," Fyla said, exasperation detectable in her tone, "but what about Deek or something? He's a really friendly guy and he wouldn't care about defects 'cause he's one too, kinda sorta."

Smidge frowned slightly. "I don't think Deek has the most advanced of socialization skills. He has also been ostracized, albeit by Zee and not by his own fault. A fair point however," she added a bit hastily, "since he is quite socially outgoing."

"I don't think Zee's really going to allow them to socialize much," Con put in softly, a hint of nervousness in his voice. "I mean, he doesn't even really let Deek spend time with Died and their partner experiments, aren't they?" His tentacles fidgeted nervously as he spoke, hefting Fyla closer to himself as though she were a familiar stuffed animal or a security blanket. Fyla didn't see to mind the shift, only putting one hand bracingly on his hull as both an act of comfort and an effort to steady herself.

Felix nodded as he pulled his gaze away from Con and Fyla, his lips pursed in otherwise well concealed anger. Behind him, he heard his father snicker softly. 'Entirely unhelpful,' he thought dryly. "Throughout the course of Zee's experiments there has been a large dearth in regards to socialization. Though it is to be noted that he created his second experiment with the entire purpose of socializing his first experiment. Although it is also noteworthy that through that… _mixing_ he gained two more subjects to study. His fifth experiment was entirely too dangerous and unstable to be allowed into the company of others. Deek does have a very social personality, but Died doesn't. When he made them, Zee didn't put time into giving them set personalities, although he should have since the entire experiment would have fallen apart if Died disliked Deek just a little more."

Con let out an almost inaudible whine, hugging Fyla closer to his hull. A hot flash of rage washed over Felix's senses for a moment, the savage aspect of his personality wanting very much to rip Con's shell open and do something he wasn't quite sure of to his innards. Maybe tear them out and use his empty casing as a house or something, he really didn't know. Maybe he could settle for gouging out an eye or two with his bear hands; that would teach him. The dark snarls continued as he focused once more on the topic of their convergence.

"N'aw sem…" his father cooed from behind him. Felix restrained himself from noticeably frowning, resolutely ignoring him.

Smidge did visibly frown. "An undertaking of an experiment that is both psychological, sexual, and behavioral when he has never done work in any of those areas before? It seems like an awful lot to take on, very high risk of failure due to inexperience, chance of experiment getting out of hand and his work being discovered. No real risk of deactivation since he internalized all the necessary functions of his PAK, not to mention he has those codes… He always seemed so much more conservative, taking risks, yes, but never to this degree. More of a testing-the-envelope closet scientist, just seeing if he really could do something but never wanting to do anything he was likely to fail at."

"But he hasn't done anything recently," said Con in a tone that almost managed to be a whimper. "I mean, I guess all that pushing-the-envelope and scientist stuff has just sorta been building up an' now he's dealing with it all at once in one big experiment."

The Savage grumbled inside Felix's head, entirely unhappy that the other actually raised a good point. Felix wished very much for the Savage to shut up, preferably forever by crawling in to a corner of his mind and dieing, if at all possible in a painfully but silent manner. Maybe with severed vocal cords; that would stop all moaning, groaning, and screaming in its tracks. Perchance he could create within his mind some sort of soundproof killing dome and be rid of the Savage.

But no, that would be letting them win, wouldn't it? So he ignored the other's kvetching and put a pensive frown on his face, eyes narrowed slightly in consideration. "It is possible," he said in a voice that he passed off as contemplative instead of an unwilling admittance that the other was likely correct.

Smidge shot him a nasty look that clearly said "Of course it is; stop being a prat." If either Con or Fyla noticed this nonverbal exchange, they either didn't understand what was being communicated or were wise enough to not comment. Although the parts of Felix that comprised the Savage-hating taskforce and brutal honesty components of his personality were very happy to inform him that they had every right to agree with Smidge and that he was, in fact, being a prick.

To Con, Smidge said: "Very likely. In fact, since he has lain quiet for so long, that's probably exactly what's causing the sudden increase in risk-taking."

Despite the fact that Con rarely spoke and didn't even use his mouth to emote, it was obvious that he would be blushing if he were capable of doing so. It was in his eyes, always extraordinarily expressive, cast away from the group, and the way his tentacles moved, his whole form actually moving, just slightly, around in the air, as though squirming. It wasn't often that he spoke or took any sort of real action, and therefore he was rarely praised. Not that he hadn't been correct, but that didn't stop the Savage from rising up inside his chest when Fyla giggled, good-naturedly, at his broken reticence and incurred sheepishness.

A heavy thump sounded from behind them. Felix glanced over his shoulder, not showing the least bit of surprise because he wasn't caught off guard in the least. Sure enough, there was his father, now lying on the floor, staring at them with slightly glazed eyes. His red gazed cleared somewhat, head lifting and antennae perking as the rest of the room's occupants stared at him. "Meef!" he offered, with an unnecessary hangdog expression, head and antennae lowered in submission and apology. Then he laughed, lightly and happily as though a close friend had made a joke about him, and smiled benignly, if a bit vapidly, up at them.

Smidge was the first to speak after the interruption, drawing attention back to their meeting. "Not to move too hastily, but I believe that we have covered the agenda by this point in time?" She spoke to the entire party, but all present knew that the question was directed to Felix, who, as Head Control Brain, was the only one who could officially dismiss the meeting.

So it was he who mused for a moment, sorting his thoughts, reactions, and what he had taken away from the deliberations, before nodding his head decisively. "Yes, I think we've covered all that we need to. We will convene again at a later time to discuss the fate of Control Brain Gnaven, the one who improperly disposed of the defective smeet."

Smidge nodded. "Shall I send a message to Zee, informing him of our decision?" Felix eyed her for a moment, noticing Con slowly edging away from them with Fyla in his tentacles.

"I suppose you may as well, although I don't doubt that Head Director Zee puts little, if any, stock in what we think. But under the pretense of procedure he should be informed."

Smidge nodded, floating out of the room so that she could compose her epistle in peace. Now a fair distance away from the podium, Felix saw Fyla talking quietly to Con. There were times when she stopped talking, clearly points where Con was meant to respond or interject, yet not a sound reached him from either of them. Fyla because she was talking so quietly and Con because Fyla had learned to understand what he meant to say almost solely by reading his facial expressions. For whatever good it did anyone, Felix was quite sure that there was no Irken with eyes as impossibly expressive as Con's.

With a soft grunt and a whine, his father rolled on to his back, arms and legs above his torso, pulled close but with belly still exposed. He didn't whine again, but he looked at Felix hopefully, wiggling slightly and arcing just a bit so that his stomach was more prominent. Felix gave him a sharp frown and dashed his hopes of a much-wanted belly rub by turning on his heel and marching off the dais and out of the room, robes billowing around him and red eyes blazing with poorly concealed rage. Off in their own little world, Con twirled Fyla around with one tentacle before dipping her, one tentacle behind her back to support her and another clasped within one of her hands as they danced with a grace indecent of a smeet and a Control Brain. Felix's father sulked and scowled at the pair of them from his compromising position before rolling to his feet and skulking after his son, sending on last petulant look over his shoulder before he exited the room.

It didn't take long for father to catch up to and overtake son. The elder of the pair scampered in front of the other, body low to the ground as he skittered backwards to avoid the possibility of being trodden on. Although Felix wouldn't put his feet, bare, booted, or otherwise, upon his father – at least not in anger, he did make for a rather nice foot rest at times – that didn't mean stopping in front of him when he was moving was the best of ideas. If he had walked in to or tripped over him, it wouldn't be the first time inertia caused an accident.

The elder was peering in to his eyes with aberrant intensity, intelligence momentarily discernable in his usually vacant red eyes. The scrutiny actually made Felix stop moving, caught off guard by this seldom seen side of his father. And, to be honest, he felt rather guilty, although he wouldn't admit it, to be the cause of this rare show of lucidity. Why, when clarity was so rare for his father, did it have to be squandered on a childish problem that he shouldn't even be having, let alone need his mentally handicapped father's help with. Jealousy, he fumed, really was a monster; a nonexistent entity that caused more fear and discord than he could ever hope to spread, however pure or corrupt he was, had been, or would become. Almost awe-inspiring, if terror and chaos were what one angled for in life.

While he had been scolding himself for being immature, his father had apparently reached some sort of conclusion on whatever it was that he had been looking for. Rearing up on to his hind legs, he reached forward and pulled Felix in to a hug. He didn't lunge forward, but he did move a bit fast. However, Felix recognized that this wasn't one of his spur-of-the-moment shows of affection, but a calculated act of comfort and reassurance. That and the fact that if his father had moved much slower he would have ducked away from the embrace. He still didn't really return the hug, but ever since he had gotten the second PAK he'd stopped using his arms anyway; the tentacles were so much more effective and useful than the flesh-and-blood limbs he had been born with, now hidden beneath the heavy purple cloak that had no sleeves through which his arms could be seen or be used even if he were so inclined. He did, however, allow his head to rest on his father's shoulder and, with a defeated weariness, resigned himself, if only momentarily, to the fact that he was only three years old and should not have all – any, really – of the responsibility and expectations that he did. He _should_, in fact, be huffy and irritated over the childish fact that _his_ best friend had, as far as he was concerned, replaced him with someone he didn't particularly like and had no desire whatsoever to talk to outside of the course of his work.

His father cooed softly in his ear, reassuring and loving words, carefully and thoughtfully chosen; not just empty words thrown together at random in a pitiful attempt to string together a sentence. They weren't in Irken and he didn't recognize all the words, but he got the gist of the message in its entirety and the general gist of the individual words themselves. However, Felix still did not hug his father back. First of all, his arms were quite thoroughly trapped by both the cloak and the tight embrace, likely atrophied and frozen shouldered after such a long period of disuse anyway. Secondly, using his metal tentacles would likely break the fragile connections within his father's mind, plunging him back in to oblivion. Lastly, it was perfectly acceptable in this day and age for children of age equal to his mental prowess to wish to not hug their parents. Not that that last one was a particularly good reason, but he felt the first two were justification enough even if the third was a poor argument.

He stayed in his father's embrace for several long minutes, wanting to both continue on his way and stay right were he was until one of them died or the world ended and they both died. The PAKs wanted to continue on with life, toss aside the foolhardy affection and put a stop to all this emotional business. Another part longed to have never gotten the PAKs and be nothing more than a child with a child's problems. A fourth part of him wanted to end the hug but knew that doing so would end his father's cognizance.

Ultimately he stayed standing to one side of the hall, safe within his father's arms, until the other ran out of words and began to repeat himself. It wasn't in the same order he had said them in before, but he was out of comfort and could only reword what he had already said. This was as far as his father's mental clarity could take either of them in this situation. He knew it was imprudent to believe that they could somehow continue through life like this: forever hugging as they went on to surmount any obstacle life threw their way. With a sigh, Felix gave the crook of his father's neck one last nuzzle, tensing oddly, as though tightening his arms around his father in one last squeeze, before pulling gently out of the embrace.

His father smiled gently, understanding still in his features as he allowed his son to pull away, remaining upright for another moment before sinking slowly to the ground, returning to his familiar four-legged stance. He continued to smile benignly up at him, but gradually, disturbingly, the understanding faded in to a look of innocent inscience; a full grown adult with the mental capacity of a young child.

Felix couldn't hold the vacant gaze. It was friendly, but his father would befriend anyone who had not, at least according to his memory, done him harm. This was the disturbing part of his father's imbalance: the affection for all those who he did not believe had hurt him and the attempts to kill those who had hurt him. While his father thankfully could tell the difference between not getting his way and actually being wronged, the extent to which he pursued justice was frightening, especially to see the way the adorable, smeet-like qualities disappeared from his person. He didn't transform in to any being of great intelligence, but a creature that existed only to fulfill the dark deed he wanted done.

None, however, dared to kill him. It was not a matter of failing and, consequently, dieing during the attempt, but the shear wrath of powers beyond the understanding of regular mortals. His father was supposed to be dead; had already died once. But his life was not entirely his own, because somewhere along the line he had picked up a powerful parasite and became a host body. He was therefore protected by his guest, kept alive so that they could both continue to coexist. The damages wrought upon his body millennia before did not hamper this power, for it was not his to control, merely to channel at the whims of the other.

Felix had never met this mysterious creature and knew only that she meant no harm and that she was not truly inside of his father but using his body as a portal to enter the plane on which they lived. She did not mind his shortcomings and was patient with him, choosing to befriend rather than enslave. And so Felix lifted no hand either flesh or metal against her and made no move to expel her from his father's body.

His father's mind was swamped with fog once more, his attention span too short to remain standing in the hallway. His smile faded and he was no longer looking at his son, instead peering about for something interesting to cast his gaze upon. Nothing of the sort presented itself to his childish interests, so he turned his gaze forward, eyes half lidded with boredom, and leaned against his son's robe-covered legs.

Sensing the weight, Felix chanced a glance down. His father was no longer looking at him with those disturbingly blank eyes, choosing instead to stare straight ahead, even if there was nothing but more hallway, identical to the place they stood. Knowing that his father wasn't putting enough weight on him to fall over when he continued moving, he strode forward, forcing confidence in to each step. The hallways were empty for now, as they usually were, but there was always the chance of someone venturing down in to the ship's belly and coming upon them. The hug had been a risk; such outward gestures of affection, especially in an open area, were heavily frowned upon. And there he had been, Head Control Brain, not only hugging but embracing a member of another species.

The scandal such a thing could cause would put him at odds with the rest of the Empire. Although he trusted Smidge and Con to support him and not try to oust him, should such information ever get out, he did not have the same faith in the rest of the Control Brains, who, combined, would be able to overthrow the three of them and establish a new Head Control Brain and Controller Council. Not that that was such a horrible thing in and of itself, if he ignored the fact that 'ousting' was a very pleasant way to say he'd be killed in the takeover.

There were few rooms off of these corridors, and what rooms there were were vast in size. It was in to one room that, by comparison, was actually rather small that he turned. This was where Smidge had gone, easily spotted near the back of the room. She wasn't facing him, but that didn't mean that she didn't know he was there. He had been making his movements confident, not quiet. She did not turn to face him, however, merely continued with her work. Due to the relatively small size of the room, she was taking up just under a third of the space left available after assorted machinery had been put into the room. She was hovering before a large, slightly unusual computer set at the back of the room. The machine worked just like any other of its sort, but was modified to accommodate a Control Brain, with a rather high, curved counsel. It was set at a height several inches below the bottom most set of eyes on most Control Brains and arched neatly inwards to provide a comfortable place for a Control Brain's spherical hull. Dotted along the counsel, amongst the standard function keys, were sealed ports for a Control Brain to connect to in order to either retrieve information or enter commands to the computer.

Smidge had one of her computer connection cables attached to one of these ports. They were slightly different from the cables used to extract data from an Irken PAK in that they were thicker than the slim metal cords used at trials. As he padded further in to the room, she still did not acknowledge his presence or that of his father, who had followed him. He stood there, a silent specter, as his father walked a bit further, climbed on top of some boxy machine and settled down. This is how the next few minutes stretched past: Smidge working, Felix standing behind her, and his father giving himself a small bath before laying down, looking about ready for a siesta. At last, however, Smidge disconnected herself from the computer, her work completed, and turned to face Felix. She gave a short, curt nod to him, apparently ready to leave the room but unable to move around the small male.

"What did you think of the smeet?" he asked her in earnest, using his mouth to speak instead of sending out electronic pulses like he usually did.

"Fascinatingly useful; a defect that is, by and large, a perfectly capable member of society, yet unable to fill a social role and forced from existence in order to, as Gnaven put it, protect those of the population who are, to a T, normal."

"Yes, I though you would find it an interesting specimen. Any plans for it?"

Smidge took his words in stride, not the least bit disconcerted that the other knew of her second agenda. "Not at the moment, no. More something to keep tabs on than to actually use. I would say I would keep a closer watch, but the particular nature of the defect falls a bit short of what I would find truly useful. Not," she added, "that I would purposely go forth and create a defect to suit my own curiosity or desires, but this is close enough to what would be ideal to warrant monitoring."

Felix nodded as he listened. "If I may ask," and here he allowed her the option of not answering, for this was as friendly a conversation as they ever had, "what your ideal for this sort of defect is?"

"A simultaneous hermaphrodite, with fully formed and functional genitalia of both male and female genders."

Felix pondered for a moment, not in the least bit disturbed by the answer Smidge had given him. "This… hermaphrodite," he said slowly, testing the word, "would it be able to impregnate itself?"

Smidge's response was prompt; clearly she had researched the topic thoroughly. "Entirely possible. The individual could also have a mechanism within its body to prevent self-fertilization."

"But which would you prefer to have as a subject to examine?"

"For research purposes? One that can't impregnate itself; it's a fascinating idea, but I would prefer to see the specimen interact and possibly produce offspring with other males and females instead of having it potentially fail with or give up on having a partner or partners and fertilizing itself."

Felix nodded in understanding, glancing over at his father, who was practically the embodiment of the failure to get a partner, considering the fact that he could care less if said partner was male, female, young, old, animate, inanimate, living, dead, moving, or not moving; he had completely transcended all known realms of pansexuality. In other words, he really could care less about who or what he had sex with.

"So you're just watching from a distance, more out of curiosity than the possibility of gain?" It was nothing more than a curious question. He had not made moves against Smidge in the past and had no intent to do so now.

"Yes, yes I think that would be best…"

---

End notes:

1. Yes, Felix is a flesh-and-blood Control Brain, he just has two PAKs.

2. My Control Brains break canon; I designed them to be capable of free movement, unlike the ones in the show that appeared to be tethered to machinery.

3. I completely failed to properly show Con and Fyla's personalities, and for that I apologize for the disservice.

4. Yes, Felix's father does actually have a name. It just wasn't added because Felix has enough respect/gratitude to not call think of him by his given name.


End file.
